The stumbling block to a third season, inevitably, is money. Weiner, who oversees everything from scripts to ensuring that the photocopier in the corner of the Sterling Cooper office is the right brand for the era, spent the weeks after Mad Men won the Emmy for best drama in a series of meetings with the heads of major studios and networks to consider new projects. He is rumoured to have asked AMC, the channel on which Mad Men airs, for a multi-season deal worth $10m (£6m) a year and control over promotion and advertising.
It’s the sort of package that HBO’s big hitters such as Alan Ball, the man behind Six Feet Under and current hit True Blood, or David Chase, creator of The Sopranos (the show Weiner previously worked on) demand as a matter of course. But AMC is no HBO, and Lionsgate, the independent production company behind the show, while keen to tie Wiener into a two-year deal, is unwilling to splash that sort of cash.’We are currently in negotiations with Matthew Weiner,’ a spokesman for Lionsgate told The Observer. ‘We very much want to have him back but our first commitment is to the show and to ensuring that the quality remains the same in the next season.’ He admitted that there were financial issues but refused to comment on rumours that the production company had already begun to sound out potential replacements, including West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin.Observer (qui il lungo artitocolo del NYT Magazine uscito a giugno)

Mad Men is the cultural capital du jour—it is to 2008 what The Wire was to 2007. Don Draper is the new Omar. Know the man’s name.
Of course, In a boy’s club like Sterling Cooper, it never hurts to have a cheat sheet to keep up, and that’s where Radar comes in to help. Here is a rundown of the main characters, and even a few alluring conversation topics to get you through this weekend’s parties without seeming like a totally uninformed social leper.